Q. I heard that something changed about child support, and I am wondering if I should try to modify what I am receiving. My income hasn’t changed but I think my ex-husband’s income has increased. He always gets annual raises and bonuses, but I have not seen anything about his income since we divorced four years ago. Then he was earning $385,000 plus his bonus. My income is still $50,000.
I suspect he will not just tell me about his income, so how do I know if I should do something?
A. The only way for you to truly know is to file a complaint for modification asking for more child support and serve him with the complaint along with a request for his financial statement. He will have to provide his financial statement along with his W-2, 1099 and/or k-1 forms.
The Child Support Guidelines are reviewed periodically and just finished undergoing such a review. The new guidelines take effect Dec. 1, 2025. One of the big changes is that the guidelines now calculate support up to a combined income of $450,000 which is $50,000 more than when you got divorced. There are other changes as well, the childcare cost benchmark has increased, children who are 18 but still in high school are presumed under age 18 for child support calculation purposes, the base support amount for one child has increased, as well as some other changes which impact people of lower incomes.
The new guidelines do not have any way of navigating the calculations required by the recent Cavanagh cases, however. So, I recommend you wait until after Jan. 1 to do anything. If he typically receives a bonus in the first quarter of a new year for the work done in the prior year, you may consider waiting until that point.
You should spend the next few months undertaking a detailed review of your household expenses, preparing a spreadsheet of expenses just for your children, expenses just for you and shared household expenses so you can present the information to the judge.
I recommend waiting until early 2026 to file so that you can also ask for discovery including his year end paystub which will give you data on employer contributions to retirement, health insurance and other perks which should now be included in his income for calculating support.
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